Answers to Pop Quiz.

Answer to 1:

c. Turn on a dime, willfully contradicting your previous prediction, thereby undermining your standing with yourself and others.

Answer to 2:

Yes, cognitive dissonance is very important.

Animal behaviorists have observed apparent delight, even in phlegmatic creatures  like cows, when they understand something.  Even in this scientific age, one may reasonably suspect that humans share the joy. In fact, it appears that humans, regardless of how smart they may really be, have a core need to think they understand how the world works.  For a detailed analysis of how humans furnish their head spaces have a look at Vilfredo Pareto’s Trattato di sociologia generale.

The root of cognitive dissonance is the reluctance to throw out mental furniture. Just as you get comfortable in your chair, some rude fact-o-tum (wrong word, but the pun is irresistible) yanks it out from under you. To be wrong, over and over, is one of the humiliations of the predictor. Get used to it.

At any moment, all we  have is a picture painted by the facts. The picture changes unexpectedly as a result of our ignorance, which, relying on open sources, is completely excusable. Two of my posts demonstrate this. Which ones were they?

All this is in the context of the predictor. The product of the predictor incorporates the costs of failure and benefits of success in a linear fashion. For the decision maker (of a course of action), the costs and benefits are not symmetrical.  It is wise to keep the processes of decision, and of action, separate, because the cost structures are so different. Both the predictor and decision maker must be diligent, but the decision maker’s course of action has consequences that unfold over time, while the product of the predictor is an instantaneous value.